Would ratepayers get handed the bill for expanding electricity generation and transmission to accommodate energy-hungry data centers? (Getty Images)

Republicans in the GOP-dominated Kentucky Senate advanced a bill Tuesday largely on a party line vote to create new hurdles before utilities can retire fossil fuel-fired power plants in the state, touting the legislation as a way to keep the state’s electricity supply reliable and available.?

Senate Bill 349, backed by Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, and primarily sponsored by Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, would create a new review commission that utilities would have to provide notice to before filing requests to the state’s utility regulator to retire a fossil fuel-fired power plant.?

“Senate Bill 349 simply requires due diligence and a thorough review to ensure existing capacity is not retired too quickly and that any new or replacement generation is ready to meet Kentucky’s energy needs,” Mills said on the Senate floor.?

Investor-owned utilities, such as Duke Energy and Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) and environmental groups have previously decried the bill as creating unnecessary bureaucracy to impede retirement requests and keep aging, uneconomical coal-fired power plants on the grid. Ratepayers, critics warn, could be burdened with the costs of unnecessarily extending the life of coal-fired power plants. Critics have also honed in on what they see is the problematic makeup of the commission, which would include industry representatives from a number of energy sources but favor the? fossil fuels —? coal and natural gas.?

Lane Boldman, the executive director of the environmental advocacy group Kentucky Conservation Committee, said she doesn’t understand the need to create an “additional layer” of regulation when the Public Service Commission could have its resources boosted to handle broader responsibilities.?

“It just doesn’t make sense to hang on to infrastructure that’s even near its lifecycle,” Boldman said. “I know there were comments made that these plants aren’t done yet, but they’re clearly past their prime.”

SB 349 passed the Kentucky Senate on a party line vote of 28-9, with a handful of Republicans from Northern Kentucky and the Louisville area joining nearly all Democrats in voting against the bill. The bill heads to the House for its consideration.?

This proposed 18-member commission, dubbed the Energy Planning and Inventory Commission (EPIC) under SB 349, would be charged with creating a report for each retirement request analyzing the impacts of and alternatives to the request, including how it would impact electricity supply and whether the retirement would create a “loss of revenue” for local and state government.?

Utilities wouldn’t be allowed to file retirement requests with the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC), the state utility regulator that approves or denies such requests, without having the EPIC report on file.?

Mills said he made changes to SB 349, added through a floor amendment, after listening to feedback from utilities. The amendment would shorten the timeframe in which EPIC could operate ahead of a retirement request made to the PSC. Utilities would have to give notice to EPIC of a retirement request 180 days before filing a request to the PSC, instead of 365 days in the original bill.?

Senate Democrats who criticized the bill echoed the concerns of utilities and environmental groups.

Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville said the proposed commission would limit the state’s future energy choices. “My constituents want clean energy, clean air and clean water,” Berg said. “If we don’t begin to deliver that to our children, then we’re gonna leave them in a world that is not safe to live in.”?

Sen. David Yates, D-Louisville, said the Senate should be “open and honest” that the added bureaucracy of the commission would contribute to future rate increases for Kentuckians.?

Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, a co-sponsor of the bill, reiterated his support by saying there needed to be an “honest conversation” about the upcoming “reliability crisis” the state faces.?

“We do not need to remove any generation. In fact, we need to increase generation,” Stivers said, referencing the amount of power supply created in Kentucky.?

LG&E and KU President John Crockett, who was among utility representatives who testified against SB 349, has previously rebuffed assertions from Stivers that the state is facing an energy reliability crisis.?

SB 349 does have the backing of the coal interests. Dependable Power First Kentucky is a lobbying group affiliated with America’s Power, a national organization advocating “on behalf of the U.S. coal fleet and its supply chain.”?

In a statement last week when SB 349 passed out of a Senate committee, Dependable Power Kentucky commended the bill sponsors for “taking much needed steps to help ensure a reliable supply of electricity for the citizens of Kentucky.”